Auditorium Square Park. July, 2016. Paul Goldfinger photo © Click image to enlarge.
NORAH JONES “Carnival Town” From her album Feels Like Home.
Archive for the ‘Ocean Grove lifestyles’ Category
Modern OG history—-2016. Let there be light. Illumination Night in Ocean Grove.
Posted in Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association Activity, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Photograph by Paul Goldfinger, Photographic Gallery: Ocean Grove, Photography at The Jersey Shore, Photography Nights in Ocean Grove, tagged Illumination Night 2016 OceanGrove on January 7, 2026|
Modern OG history—2016. Tent city: displaying the colors in Ocean Grove.
Posted in Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove photographs, OCEAN GROVE PORCH CULTURE, tagged A lovely day in Ocean Grove, Ocean Grove tent colony on January 6, 2026|
End of the day, August 27, 2016. Ocean Grove © Paul Goldfinger photo © Click and stand at attention, hand over your heart.
ELLA FITZGERALD AND THE PAUL WESTON ORCHESTRA
Ocean Grove artist Jack Bredin: Tree lighting ceremony…
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Jack Bredin painter, Ocean Grove artists, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove magic moments, tagged Jack Bredin artist, Jack Bredin paints Ocean Grove, Tree lighting Ocean Grove 2017 on December 24, 2025| 1 Comment »
Tree Lighting Ceremony . 2018. By Jack Bredin, Ocean Grove, NJ, USA. Photograph by Rob Bredin. Click image to enlarge it. You may find some surprises.
ANGELA LANSBURY from Mame:
Modern OG history—2019. When is enough enough? What’s the point?
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove lifestyles, tagged Ocean Grove identity, Ocean Grove life styles on December 21, 2025| 3 Comments »
Will the future of OG come into focus? Paul Goldfinger photo near Heroes Park. OG. September, 2019.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net. Repost from September 2019.
The giant “fall” flea market is over. Soon to occur: another craft show, dog parade, trolley tours, Cabaret on Main, Harvest Festival–close down Main Avenue on October 5, Victorian house tours, and then Commercial Christmas will reappear, done large.
The Chamber of Commercials is currently driving the bus, promoting down-town businesses. They don’t care about residential OG. CMA is taking a break, but not for long. The Home Groaners don’t wonder about these things, but they don’t wonder much about anything having to do with lifestyles in the Grove, although that is supposed to be one of their mandates.
And the Neptune elected officials don’t care.
So what will define Ocean Grove in the future? Will it be behaving like a historic residential village in small town America?
It looks like it will appear as a sort of junior Disneyland where bored outsiders can come and do this or that, and investors can exploit the burgeoning real estate market with rentals and condos.
The events and crowds keep multiplying, and, in addition, we are becoming a bedroom community, an appendage, for Asbury Park where they know who they are. And the CMA infrastructure will continue to enlarge its mostly religious calendar.
The beach scene is welcome and expected and is a given–not part of this conversation.
Next summer the CMA-sponsored classical music will be great again—with tiny audiences. The music scene will remain narrowly focused. And the town will be swelling with religious events and tourists.
Maybe the CMA will get its wish to restore the old predominant religious focus here, even though the town’s residents are largely secular. The CMA continues to misuse the name Ocean Grove and they still hope to turn the Grove into a Seaside Christian resort. heading towards year round activities.
The residents, owners and renters don’t exactly know who they are in a communal sense. Are they a community with a vibrant master plan or just people who live here and assume that overgrown tourism is how it must be? I grew up in a small New Jersey town, and it was much different.
At the end of this month, Red Bank will have an Oyster Festival on one day, September 29, from 12 to 6 . Otherwise they have no large events. And what they do have through the summer are for the residents, such as live jazz and movies in the park. They have a large downtown which is classy, but they keep the home- town spirit of the place for the sake of their residents.
And Neptune is soon having a concert at the Shark River for the River area residents. When did Neptune Township offer a musical program for Grover residents? They notice us when they need to exploit our town for one reason or another, mostly for our tax obligations.
And although Asbury is growing as a music, bar scene, restaurant, shopping and tourist destination, it is deeply concerned with its residents, the arts, housing for rich and poor, diversity, and its history. Its focus is complicated, but unlike the Grove, it has a focus and a master plan for its residents. Maybe the latter is blurry at AP, but their master plan is steadily coming into focus.
So, again, what is the point of this constant barrage of tourists in Ocean Grove–a town with an identity challenge ?
GUY LOMBARDO AND HIS ROYAL CANADIANS From the soundtrack of Woody’s movie Zelig.
Chain reaction…..but no stopping or standing.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Photograph by Paul Goldfinger, Photographic Gallery: Ocean Grove, Photography Nights in Ocean Grove, tagged Auditorium Square Park, You make me feel so young on December 19, 2025|
Auditorium Square Park. Ocean Grove, NJ. October, 2018. Paul Goldfinger photograph. Click once to enlarge.
FRANK SINATRA (First heard in the 1946 film “Three Little Girls in Blue.”)
Pearl Harbor Day in Ocean Grove December 7, 2015. We must remember.
Posted in Ocean Grove events, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Photograph by Paul Goldfinger, tagged Pearl Harbor Day in Ocean Grove- New Jersey on December 7, 2025|
10:50 am, and the crowd has already assembled on the Ocean Grove pier. December 7, 2015. Paul Goldfinger photographs. © Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Blogfinger.net While we are on the subject of Pearl Harbor Day.
Every December 7, at 11:00 am, a group of service club members and citizens meet at the fishing pier to remember the atrocity which was Pearl Harbor. We lost 2,400 Americans on that day in 1941 “which shall live in infamy” (FDR.)
The Ocean Grove event is quite unusual as most towns in USA do not have such ceremonies. Each year the ritual is unchanged: The Neptune High School color guard is present; military organizations are there; taps are played, a prayer is recited, and “God Bless America” is sung. A few words are spoken to remember the soldiers and sailors who died that day, and mention was made of those who made the supreme sacrifice for America in other conflicts. A floral wreath is tossed into the ocean.
Taps sound and echo over the water. Blogfinger.net ©
As the crowd began to disburse, a female member of the Neptune VFW heads back and then enters the beach, walking slowly to the waters edge, as if to offer her personal tribute. Then she walks back onto the boards where Blogfinger gets to speak to her for a few minutes (see below).
Neptune High School honor guard. Blogfinger .net ©
Neptune VFW. Blogfinger.net ©
The color guard must be shown in color. Blogfinger.net ©
RUBY BRAFF AND DICK HYMAN “America the Beautiful”
Lies my parents told me. Share yours. Email: Blogfinger@verizon.net. There will be a 2025 prize.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove lifestyles, tagged Bubbemycin, Lies our parents told us on November 30, 2025| 3 Comments »
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net
Repost with Rich Lepore of OG—2020.
-Just send me a comment or an email, and I will add you to the list of parental fibs. Send comments to Blogfinger@verizon.net or use our comments button below–add to the list from before.
Rich Lepore of the HUB store in Auditorium Park and I were reminiscing in 2015 about lies that our parents told us when we were kids. In Yiddish, such bull stories were called “bubbemycins” (trans: old wives’ tales).
So he and I exchanged a few and then Rich suggested we have a Blogfinger bubbemycin event. Sent us your favorite one or two, and we will wind up with a prize for the most fanciful of lies on the home front.
You can participate using a fake name if you don’t want your parents, living or dead, to punish you. You can offer a few sentences of explanation if needed. I will add you to our list below:
PG: My father hated when I walked around the house wearing sox. He said, “Don’t do that—it’s against our religion.” So, although I never became a religious scholar, I did eventually realize that he was “hocking my chinick” — ( pr: “chi”–rhymes with pie… tr.: annoying me with nonsense.) But, to this day, I hate walking around in my sox. And now I see this as a safety issue; seniors can slip and fall if walking indoors in their socks
Rich: My parents said I would be up all night if I had a cup of coffee in the evening. Later I learned that I could sleep all night after coffee.
Rich: We couldn’t go in the water after eating anything because we could have a fatal cramp and drown. One day I snuck into the beach water after eating a Twinkie, and I didn’t drown. Now I don’t go into the water at all.
Kathleen Cluba: This brings back so many memories of my mother who I miss and think of daily. She always used to tell me to eat the crust on my bread as it would give me curly hair. Well, I’m pushing 70 and my hair is still very fine and straight and worn short. OMG, I look like a peach.
Ogrover: So many little ones to choose from like … Lima beans are just green mashed potatoes with the skin on … Keep making that face and it will stay that way … You can’t make a living as a Skee Ball player … oh wait, that one is probably true.
A Little Risqué: Don’t “make out”..You could get pregnant…oops I hope this isn’t too risqué.
—-Editor’s note: Risqué—Are you kidding? Many of our readers will learn something from your comment. I wish I could find a time machine and send your bubbemycin sample back to the junior girls at Rutherford High School. c 1958.
Penny: “Don’t go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold!”
BILLIE HOLIDAY “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.” (Editor: Religious scholars will tell you that it is indeed a sin to tell a lie, even though it is not exactly in the 10 commandments. But there is that pesky commandment about bearing false witness….that’s a lie. )
Double standards at the Historic Preservation Commission? We’re shocked, shocked that that would go on here in historic OG.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove controversies, Ocean Grove historical preservation, Ocean Grove history, Ocean Grove lifestyles, tagged Double standards in Ocean Grove, Historical Preservation Commission on November 28, 2025| 12 Comments »
Ocean Grove: Can we keep it? Paul Goldfinger photograph along the edges of Wesley Lake/Lake Avenue. © Undated Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor@Blogfinger.net. This is a repost from 2017 updated in 2021.
Probably the biggest complaint about the Historic Preservation Commission relates to its inconsistencies. For example, a Grover couple owns a large Victorian home that they have tried to maintain with great attention to its historic attributes. It is actually a Victorian showplace. Up in back of their house there is a staircase ascending to an access at the second floor. They wanted to put a fairly small deck up there. It would be barely visible from the street and would improve the couple’s life-style. But the HPC refused the request on the grounds that such a structure was not historic.
Yet around the Grove there are all sorts of porches and decks that have been added. Just take a walk and you can see them. If you were a prospective home buyer here, you might look around and think that such decks are historic.
We had one on the second floor, in the rear, of our Centennial Home on Heck Avenue. If I tried to build that from scratch, it might (or might not) be approved. The HPC is unpredictable. Another person we know was given permission to put up a deck just like the rejected couple’s.
Double standards by the HPC (as with their parental group, the Township Committee) are toxic to good will and lifestyles in this town.
But if some of you are shocked, shocked that we might have double standards at the HPC, consider this:
And, speaking of astonishing double standards, consider the photo below:
HPC approved this “historic design” on Ocean Avenue in a fairly conspicuous location. Blogfinger photograph. ©
The funny thing about this building is that locals and visitors find it to be amusing. So, thanks to the HPC, we have a giant conversation piece that is famous not for its Victorian architecture, but as a sort of joke; and the HPC has become the straight man for this humorous offering which does nothing for our town’s reputation and designation as an example of historic preservation. And rumor has it that the HPC allowed a historic roof top pool, something Rev. Stokes himself would have been shocked over.
One sport in town is to provide it with ironic nicknames. For example, one person in the Grove calls it “An Ode to Cement.” We call it the “Greek Temple.” Somebody else refers to it as “The Bank.” What do you call it?
2021 update: As many of you know, the North End Redevelopment Plan has been tied up in meetings with the HPC. The Township has failed to keep the citizens of Ocean Grove informed as to what’s going on, and the HPC is on mute.
As you know, the HPC only concerns itself with exterior design issues.
We have already seen preliminary drawings of the project, so for many of us, that project should not have been permitted in the first place, and I have no information as to what the HPC is fussing over, but we will probably be left with the same concerns: blocked views, blocked breezes, crowding, neighborhood congestion, environmental issues, and a significant change in the town’s character, appearance and mood.
It will be Asbury Park South. And the timing, now that the town is changing in a variety of ways, is unfortunate. This project will slither in silently under the door, while the rest of the town is concerning itself with COVID, many new citizens, many rentals including Airbnb and its problems, a striking sellers real estate market with great demands by buyers, a shortage of affordable rental housing, and rising prices for rentals and buys that have shut many out of the market. The town needs stores that provide services to those who live in town, and such down-home businesses will not be found at the new North End.
DOOLEY WILSON from Casablanca “As time goes by.”
Modern OG history–2019. Chamber hits a musical home-run with sidewalk “Cabaret” downtown.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove downtown Main Avenue, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove Musical Event, Ocean Grove neighborhood event, tagged Ocean Grove music downtown on October 30, 2025|
Suzie Neustadter entertained the Cabaret audience downtown. 9//28/19 Paul Goldfinger photos and videos. Click image to enlarge the scene.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor@Blogfinger.net
For a long while, it seemed that the Chamber of Commerce only had eyes for the blues when it brought the same musical groups downtown for their various festivals.
But this time, seemingly out of the blue, came a wonderful musical program at Main and Pilgrim Pathway, with no street closures, only music of the sort that we have not heard before here: Broadway, Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, jazz, Gershwin, Amy Winehouse, Beatles, and others, and it was so refreshing and professional.
An Ocean Grover, Lou Parisi, brought the program that included well known jazz pianist Art Topolow and a variety of terrific Jersey singers and musicians. We’ll try to get their names.
And this is the sort of programming that we at Blogfinger have been craving: something joyful and personal that could connect with a small crowd of locals and without the parking glut and tourist mob scene that we usually see in the Grove.
I often criticize the Chamber of Commercials, but there was nothing commercial about this 3 hour program which was relaxing and great fun. Even the traffic going by seemed to add a sense of spontaneity to the music, and that is a desirable quality.
I tried to find out from a Chamber member as to what bright light ignited this wonderful surprise, but all he could say was, “We wanted a change.”
I’d like to think that this program reflects a new awareness of our community of residents and its needs.
Mendelssohn in the Great Auditorium: Celebrating the amazing music that occurs in Ocean Grove every season.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove Great Auditorium, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove Musical Event, Photograph by Paul Goldfinger, Photographic Gallery: Ocean Grove, Photography: Jersey Shore Gallery, Photos from the Great Auditorium, tagged Elijah in Ocean Grove, Great Auditorium of Ocean Grove New Jersey on October 27, 2025|
The Great Auditorium of Ocean Grove. Getting ready to perform Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” conducted by Jason Tramm. August 28, 2016. The musicians are from the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra. Paul Goldfinger photo. © Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net. 2016 post.
Kudos to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association for making such remarkable events possible in our town.
STEPHEN DOUGHTY Elijah Part 2. “He, watching over Israel, slumbers not.”
Ocean Grove lifestyles: prom time…
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove lifestyles, tagged prom time in Ocean Grove on October 11, 2025|
Main Avenue, near New Jersey Avenue. May 22, 2015. Paul Goldfinger photo ©
INK SPOTS
Beach babes by Bob Bowné
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove Beach, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove magic moments, tagged Ocean Grove life styles on September 25, 2025|
Ocean Grove friends. By Bob Bowné. Special to Blogfinger 2014. ©
DAFT PUNK: “Get Lucky”
Future Blogfinger reporter at the OG beach. He’s the Hi De Ho Man.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove beachfront, Ocean Grove lifestyles, tagged Hi de ho man in Ocean Grove on September 13, 2025|
2 1/2 year old Noah approaches a bathing beauty and introduces himself. Ocean Grove. October, 2020.
This young man was visiting the OG beach. He can say some words, so he ran around introducing himself to bathing beauties and kids digging holes. He is a true Hi De Ho Man. His Mom was nearby taking pictures and wondering “What the hey?”
CAB CALLOWAY ON SESAME STREET.